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SPUN – Artist-Designed Bike Racks

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 09:00 to Mon, 01/30/2012 - 21:00

The Cambridge Arts Council (CAC) hosts the first city bike rack design competition for Main Street in Kendall Square. Five artists were selected from the CAC Artist Registry by an independent jury and subsequently invited to submit proposals for unique bike rack designs that would bring playfulness and functionality to a ubiquitous and important sidewalk object. The artists are Vivian Beer, Carrie Bodle, Matthew Hincman, Case Randall, and Aaron Stephan.

As the City of Cambridge continues to promote bicycling as a healthy and sustainable form of transportation, the need for bike racks is ever increasing. The 1000 bike racks currently installed on public property throughout the City will soon be expanded to include the 2012 addition of eight seasonal “cycle stalls,” new playful racks for public school sites, and some of the artist-designed bike racks exhibited here.

Each artist had to balance her or his artistic mission with factors of successful functionality, ease of maintenance, compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and economy of cost. Each artist has created three or four designs that are represented in the gallery by drawings, models, and artists’ statements. We encourage you to comment and vote on these designs. Public feedback is a vital contribution to the process of final selection by the City.

Final chosen designs will be fabricated by Dero Bike Rack Company of Minnesota and installed on Main Street. The City of Cambridge is engaged in a design process for the reconstruction of Main Street between Wadsworth and Ames Streets. This construction project primarily addresses surface infrastructure needs such as landscaping, lighting, traffic flow, and support of local businesses, with the additional purpose of creating a framework for future improvements in the larger Kendall Square area.

SPUN is an exhibition to demonstrate the integration of artistic imagination with a utilitarian street feature and to place this design challenge in the context of the City’s continuing efforts to make Cambridge a most desirable place to live and work. We welcome your opinions. Please vote!

Tue, Jan 17, 9:00AM

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